NIA to take suo motu cognizance of terror activities in any part of the country and file a case, as well as to enter any state or Union Territory without the approval of the concerned government, investigate, and arrest suspects.
Image source: Deccan Chronicle
Officer near the site of the attack in Jammu
The twin regions of the Union Territory—Jammu and Kashmir Valley—witnessed a series of armed clashes between uniformed forces and separatists just before and during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Jammu and Kashmir, leaving at least eight militants dead, including a top commander of the banned Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LeT) and a security official, and more than a dozen other personnel injured.
A strange bomb was also reported from Laliyana in the Bishnah district on the outskirts of Jammu just hours before the Prime Minister’s arrival on Sunday. Even though no one was killed or property was damaged, the incident occurred roughly 8 kilometers from Palli, where Modi addressed a massive gathering on National Panchayat Raj Day.
Officials said that while clashes between militants and security forces are common in the Kashmir Valley, they believe that the two alleged Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM) militants killed in an encounter in Sunjwan on the outskirts of Jammu city on Friday were tasked by their Pakistani handlers to strike spectacularly ahead of the Prime Minister’s visit.
Mukesh Singh, Jammu’s Additional Director General of Police (ADGP), claimed that the JeM militants were only speaking to one another and others in Pashto, Afghanistan’s official language, which is also spoken in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and some northern areas and could have originated there. It is believed, based on the arms, ammunition, and other equipment being carried by them, that they had been tasked to strike spectacularly, most probably by carrying out a massive suicide attack in Jammu.”
Shafiq Ahmed and Asif Ahmed, brothers from Tral in the Pulwama district, were arrested on suspicion of assisting the militant couple while working in a walnut factory in Narwal, near Sunjwan. It has initiated a manhunt for Bilal Ahmed Wagay, a Kashmiri resident who, according to the police officer, brought the JeM militants to Sunjwan in a vegetable-laden truck from the border area of Samba. He said that the defendants used the Telegram program to communicate with a Pakistani-based JeM commander known as “Veer.”
According to the reports, a team from the National Investigation Agency (NIA) had also visited the encounter location in the Sunjwan area to gather preliminary evidence.
The National Investigation Act of 2008 empowers the NIA to take suo motu cognizance of terror activities in any part of the country and file a case, as well as to enter any state or Union Territory without the approval of the concerned government, investigate, and arrest suspects. The statute was revised in 2019 to broaden the types of crimes the agency can investigate and prosecute, including those covered by the Explosive Substances Act of 1908.
Meanwhile, two militants killed in a confrontation with security forces in the Kashmir Valley’s southern Pulwama region on Sunday have been identified as LeT cadres, including Arif Hazar alias Rehan, who was deputy to the outfit’s top commander, Basit, according to sources. According to police sources, one of the deceased is Nazish Shakeel Wani, a 17-year-old teenager from Srinagar’s Khanyar neighborhood who went missing on April 16. A Pakistani resident known as “Haqqani” has been identified as the third militant killed in the battle.
Edited By: Vanshika Sahu
Published By: Raj Kishor
